The Divorce Rate is Not As High As You Think
Posted on 05 September 2008 by cory
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Here’s an interesting snapshot of the actual divorce statistics, according to Vital Statistics Reports from the National Center for Health Statistics:
Per capita divorce rates 1990-2002:
1991, 0.47%
1992, 0.48%
1993, 0.46%
1994, 0.46%
1995, 0.46%
1996, 0.43%
1997, 0.43%,
1998, 0.42%,
1999, 0.41%,
2000, 0.41%,
2001, 0.40%,
2002, 0.38%
A couple thoughts:
- Divorce rates are down since the 1970’s, and on a downward trend for the most recent 10 years of reporting. So why all the hype around the 50% divorce rate?
- Four states do not report divorce rates: California, Colorado, Indiana and Louisiana. How would these statistics change if these states reported their data?
- These rates are the number of marriages dissolving. Since a marriage involves two, it’s a lot of people affected by this. When you think about it, 38% may seem low but is it? A 62% (success rate) was not a good grade when I went to school. What more can be done to lower the rate of failure?
How many people do you know that have been divorced? Was there anything that could have been done to save the marriage?
*note: Thanks to the readers who pointed out a slip in the original post with the 76% of married people being affected. Even though the number of people is double the percent stays the same at 38%.
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September 5th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Would be interesting to couple these numbers with the marriage statistics over the same period. I’m wondering whether the cohabitation effect indirectly plays a part in these numbers.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Thanks for the interesting stats. A couple of points though:
What are the actual statistics? Are they the percentage of the population that divorces each year? Or the percentage of marriages that end each year?
If they are a percentage of the population, then as Tom pointed out, the decrease could just reflect a decrease in the number of marriages.
Also, I’m not sure about the 76% figure. You’ve doubled 0.38 to get 76. I think whatever the stats are, they reflect the number of divorces that occurred that year, not the percentage of the population that have divorced at some time.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
To really solve for the number of people affected you need to multiply by X, where X = children.
September 5th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Just an FYI, the 76% stat is incorrect. The % of married people who went through a divorce is the same as the % of marriages that end in divorce. Put another way, if 75% of marriages ended in divorce, that wouldn’t mean that 150% of people in a marriage experienced a divorce.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Those numbers are very interesting. I think to really understand those number, more details need to be looked at. I remember reading about these number and one of the things that probably needs to be considered right away is how many of the people involved in these weddings are divorcing more then once. If my memory serves, the percentage of with multiple divorces is not insignificant.
Another number to look at is what is the average age of the people getting married. That number has been changing also. What does that mean? Not sure, I’m not a statistician but you gotta believe it does make a difference.
Most of my friends, we waited to get married. We waited until we were mature enough to handle the commitment. I only have one friend in my usual circle that is divorcing. Definitely no where near the 50% mark. Much closer to the 5% mark for the sample in my life.
Interesting topic!
September 9th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
A tip: either use a decimal point or a percent sign, but not both. 0.38% means a very different thing from 38%.
At any rate, this appears to be encouraging news. Either couples are doing better, or those at greater risk for divorce aren’t getting married on a whim. Let’s just hope they aren’t just cohabitating instead.